Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Buchanan

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ClassGleaves class
TypeDestroyer (DD)
HullDD-484
FateAfloat. In Scott's column at Cape Esperance and not sunk. Still afloat at the surrender.
Armament (class)Split-plant sisters of the Bensons. Five 5-inch guns and two funnels.

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Buchanan
U.S. Navy photo 80-G-K-417. USS Buchanan (DD-484) underway at sea, circa in August 1942 (80-G-K-417).jpg. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

USS Buchanan (DD-484) was a Gleaves-class destroyer of the United States Navy. The story of this hull centers on one night battle and on the plain fact that she lasted through the war.

On 11 October 1942 she was in the Battle of Cape Esperance. She served in Scott's column, stationed astern of the cruisers, and she was there with McCalla.

That rear station is the part recorded for her in the action. The night did not take the ship. She was not sunk.

Buchanan survived. She was still afloat at the surrender, the same hull that had come through Cape Esperance in Scott's column. A later ship of the same name was a different hull.

The pictures on this page are the originals.